Category: Sense Me, Move Me

In my second sketch of diagrams, I imagined users distorting the space they occupy rather than constructing it using points as in the previous sketch. Here, the users act as pinch points to distort the grid based on their location. The more people that join the sketch -> the more distortion -> a formation of a newer shape.

I want to design a space in which the user is the architect of the space and constructs it using the help of others stepping in within the defined boundaries. Users act as anchor points and restructure the space dynamically as they move around. My explorations do not intend to be a game, or an interactive installation but merely a reinterpretation of how space and architecture is created/defined. In these diagrams, users are anchor points that form Delaunay triangulations.

In mathematics and computational geometry, a Delaunay triangulation for a set P of points in a plane is a triangulationDT(P) such that no point in P is inside the circumcircle of any triangle in DT(P). Connecting the centers of the circumcircles produces the Voronoi diagram.

In these diagrams, users act as points that form Delauney Triangulaltions. After a certain number of points, then a Voronoi is created and the users (with the help of each other) will then see the fruits of their labour: the construction of a 3D geometric shape.

In this sketch, I imagined my body as a structural space. Again, I used the bodies’ nodes to dictate how my space is structured. Each node acts as the centroid of each 3 Dimensional Voronoi cell that occupies my space. Hence, as the Kinect detects my movement, it is constantly restructuring the space based on the change of my node’s positions. I am constantly forming and redefining the structure of the space that I occupy.

User testing

My user reported that the sketch made her lose her perception of her body and think of herself as a space. She reported that even though generally she is more aware of her vertical axis since she is very tall, my sketch made her aware of the range of her extremities and explore herself horizontally and diagonally. She reported feeling flexible, free, structured, spatial, and playful.

In this sketch, I alter the architecture of the body by changing the “nodes” that our body is connected to. In Kinect, the body is defined as node A (the head) which connects to the neck (Node B), then the left shoulder (Node C) and so forth. But what if we didn’t define the body in such a way? What if the nodes created intersections? What if they overlapped? How will this affect my sense of self or my body?

After testing it on myself, I felt that my awareness of how my body parts connected increased. I felt tight, enclosed, caged, interwoven, and captive within my own structure. I found myself moving in a way that wanted me to be free of my connections.